


The Worst Behind Us

by rjn



Category: Numb3rs (TV)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-20
Updated: 2019-02-20
Packaged: 2019-10-31 22:45:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,060
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17858420
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rjn/pseuds/rjn
Summary: “You know what the worst part was, about being tortured to death on a freighter headed for international waters?”





	The Worst Behind Us

Colby licks an errant glob of guacamole off the side of his thumb and speaks to the table.

“You know what the worst part was, about being tortured to death on a freighter headed for international waters?”

David chokes around the gulp of the IPA he had been enjoying one fraction of a second earlier. He coughs and sputters but regains use of his lungs even before Charlie starts to uselessly thump him on the back.

And it had been such a nice afternoon for a lighthearted meal with friends, too. Sun, sand, ocean, a restaurant with a patio and eight kinds of beer on tap. All of Colby’s favorite things, plus the novelty of not being eaten alive on the inside anymore by a corrosive pack of lies. That they were all able to make time for this is shocking enough, but that they were all relaxed and smiling is a miracle in the service of team bonding.

But now this. David holds his breath.

Megan doesn’t show any reaction to the harsh flippancy of Colby’s words, but her mind is screeching around a corner on two wheels. _The worst part? The waste of your precious young life for a nebulous cause? The indefatigable triumph of evil?_ She glances at David before dropping her gaze. _Knowing your closest friends believe you to be a traitor?_

Charlie squeezes Amita’s hand under the table. _The horror of failure? The feeling of letting everyone down?_ They would have figured something out.  Cleared Colby’s name, found Dwayne Carter’s contacts. But the thought that Colby might not have lived to see it happen is too much of a tragedy to calculate.

Alan wrings a paper napkin to death in his hands. Watching Colby eat a healthy truckload of food for dinner had assuaged some of his concern. The rampant parental instinct had faded to a dull ache, but now he’s disconcerted. He looks at Charlie, then from Charlie to Don and he closes his eyes. _The pain? The fear? The awareness of everything that you won’t be around to experience._

Liz picks at the cardboard coaster under her glass. _Dying alone? Far from your family. Abandoned by your team._ She’s starting to think she shouldn’t be here, shouldn’t have crashed a team bonding event, ostensibly in Colby’s honor, when she was temporarily considered for his replacement. A look around at the faces of everyone else seated at the table reassures her. Nobody is comfortable right now.

Don, eyes narrowed, gives Colby an appraising look across the table. For a guy who’s never seen combat, Don always seems to _get_ this side of Colby a little better than the rest of them. He holds no sentiment for words like duty or honor or any of the other semantic obligations that weigh down heavily on Colby’s shoulders, but he knows well the cost of bearing those loads. The way it all falls away, the helplessness of one man up against it. And when the best you can hope for is to be laughing when you hit the ground.

Colby holds Don’s gaze for a brief moment, the side of his mouth quirking. Don shakes his head, his exasperated but slightly amused expression surfacing on his face.

“Fine. Let’s have it, Hero. What was the _worst_   thing?”

Colby raises his glass in front of his mouth before answering. Maybe to cover his blushing grin, rethinking his glib commentary, or maybe just to ward off the punch to the face David probably owes him, but eventually he lowers the drink without taking a sip.

“That you guys stormed a freighter on the high seas _without me_ ,” he says ruefully. “Guns blazing, interceptor boats, helos. The whole nine yards. I missed the single coolest raid of our careers.”

David throws a tortilla chip that bounces down off Colby’s chin and sticks in his shirt collar. Liz nails him with a coaster spun viciously like a throwing star. Megan shoves roughly at the side of his head with the heel of her hand. Don groans. Charlie and Amita laugh nervously. Alan uses the uproar as a distraction and slides the bill away from Colby’s elbow. This is one time the “winner” of a commendation doesn’t pay for dinner.

~

Colby is quiet the rest of the evening. David is quieter. They outlasted everyone, moving to a smaller table at the bar and ordering Colby a precise number that the two of them jointly refer to as _Enough_ beers _._

Somewhere between David paying the bar tab and the comedy of Colby getting trapped in the sleeves of his own jacket, a decision is made to walk on the beach. With _Enough_ beers and the exhaustion at the tail end of his first week of medically cleared activity, walking on the beach for Colby quickly turns into sitting on the beach, and then lying on the beach, then leaning on David moving them entirely away from the beach. An hour later, David walks them into his shower to wash away the beach.

David turns them slightly so that the spray hits the back of his neck instead of the side of Colby’s face and muses fondly that Colby steadfastly refuses to admit that he’s slightly shorter than David. He uses his thumb to brush water droplets away from Colby’s eyes. He knows with dawning clarity that this is everything he wants for them. No blood, no fear, just gently washing the sand from Colby’s hair, the salt from his skin.

Colby is almost asleep, not alert enough for any of this to turn into a fight, and so David whispers the accusation.

“You’re a sick man, Granger. _What the worst part was?_ ”

His voice cracks and his eyes squeeze shut.

~

Colby winces. He can feel David’s heart thump faster where their chests are pressed together.

_Never having the chance to make it up to David? Never telling each other how they feel. Never the best sex of his life. Never again laughing their asses off together. Never knowing what was real and reciprocal, and capable of withstanding so much. And the loss of something he hadn’t even known yet. Never any of this. Never…_

David’s hand slips over the back of Colby’s head and pulls him in, gripping painfully tight, until their mouths are pressed together. Breathes life into him again and again.


End file.
